1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a vehicle control apparatus for controlling travel of a vehicle carrying the apparatus to bring an inter-vehicle distance between the vehicle and a preceding vehicle to a preset target inter-vehicle distance.
2. Related Art
A known vehicle control apparatus, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2013-164390, is configured to control travel of a vehicle carrying the apparatus (hereinafter referred to as a subject vehicle) to bring an inter-vehicle distance between the subject vehicle and a preceding vehicle to a preset target inter-vehicle distance. Such a vehicle control apparatus may use a radar device to detect a distance to the preceding vehicle and a relative speed of the preceding vehicle. The radar device is configured to transmit radar waves to the front of the subject vehicle and receive reflected waves to identify, among peaks of a signal acquired from the reflected waves, a peak that is equal to or greater than a threshold value as a target, calculate a distance to the target and a relative speed and a lateral position of the target to store target information about the target.
The vehicle control apparatus is configured to, based on the target information, identify a target that is closest to the subject vehicle among a plurality of targets as the preceding vehicle, and control travel of the subject vehicle to bring the inter-vehicle distance between the subject vehicle and the target identified as the preceding vehicle to a preset target inter-vehicle distance.
However, for example, in a case where the rear end of the preceding vehicle has a small reflecting area, the reflected waves from the rear end of the preceding vehicle may be so weak that a target corresponding to the rear end of the preceding vehicle cannot be detected. In such a case, the inter-vehicle distance control cannot be properly implemented behind the rear end of the preceding vehicle.
In consideration of the foregoing, exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to providing a vehicle control apparatus capable of properly implementing inter-vehicle distance control of a vehicle carrying the apparatus behind a preceding vehicle.